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For the most part women in the Odyssey are essentially one of three things: sexualized monsters, in the form of Circe, Calypso, the Sirens, and even Scylla; asexual helpers and servants, in the form of Athena and Eurycleia; and finally, seemingly helpless damsels, in the form of Penelope. To this one may add what is essentially the lowest of the low class within the poem, those women who are sexually liberated but who do not even have supernatural power to defend their desire for sexual autonomy, namely, Penelope's maids. Circe and Calypso both express sexual desire, but they are ultimately spared due to their status as goddesses, and thus they merely have to give up Odysseus. Penelope's maids have no such extra status, and thus in the hierarchy of power represent the lowest of the low, and receive punishment in return.
As a result, they are summarily executed for having sex with Penelope's suitors, and somewhat tellingly, they are betrayed to their deaths by Eurycleia, Odysseus' former maid and wet nurse (Homer 185). In a sense, Eurycleia serves as a kind of servant and supplicant to Odysseus in the same way that Athena serves...
Thus, Eurycleia telling Odysseus which maids to kill for their sexual impropriety serves to reinforce the same kind of misogynistic, sexually violent ideology that has permeated the story thus far.
The Odyssey may appear to contain a number of powerful female characters, particularly because many of these characters are literally goddesses. However, whatever power or authority that the female characters have is undermined by the fact that their power is entirely constrained by male dominance, and thus they have no real freedom. The poem reinforces a view of male authority that rests almost entirely on sexual dominance and the threat of violence, and examining the major female characters in some detail reveals how the poem undercuts female autonomy and power at every step of the way.
Works Cited
Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. Samuel Butler. New York: Plain Label Books, 2009. Print.
Works Cited
Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. Samuel Butler. New York: Plain Label Books, 2009. Print.
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